


Camp--Dusk

by moodymarshmallow



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Romance, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-25
Updated: 2012-06-25
Packaged: 2017-11-08 13:18:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/443590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodymarshmallow/pseuds/moodymarshmallow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rambling about the Dalish, Theron Mahariel, and Zevran Araiani: Takes place before the events in the "My Dear Warden" series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Camp--Dusk

As night began to fall, the setting sun dipping lazily behind the trees, it finally became quiet enough for Theron Mahariel to hear a soft whisper of breeze. By the fire, soaking in the heat and the long shadows, he sat peacefully, meditative, with heavy eyelids hiding a long, unfocused stare. There was beauty in this silence. He could hold the omen of it on his tongue, unspoken and sweet.  **  
**

Zevran Arainai was never one for meditation, there were things in the shadows and the introspection that he didn’t want to be a part of. Something—anything—had to be done about the quiet, and if he counted on the Dalish to strike up a conversation, he could be here all night. So he approached the fire and the warden, announcing himself with a scuff of his boot and the scripted groan of a play-actor, exaggerating everything, taking his time to lower his body to the ground, shifting, looking for that perfect position and sighing contentedly when he found it. A minor disturbance, but it seemed to work, as Theron, pale-eyed and vaguely bemused, turned to glance at him.  
  
They made quite a pair, similar enough to make the differences jarring. Both had the foremost strands of long hair, one blond and the other auburn, braided and tied back with a leather cord. Both were lean and high cheek-boned with ears that tapered to delicate knife-points. Both wore a uniform of pale scar, dark bruise, and dried blood, signifying a lifetime of hard-won battles. They sat near enough to be friendly, but not so close that their shadows overlapped.  
  
“You’re loud, for an assassin.” Theron spoke softly, deliberately, as if talking was something he only did under great duress. But there was no shyness in that voice, only contented calm. He met eyes with Zevran, watching the firelight do wonderful things to his skin.  
  
“I have seen what happens to people who sneak up on you,” said Zevran, lips easily curling into the familiar smirk that distorted the curve of his tattoo. “Besides, it is hardly necessary for me to be stealthy all of the time, no? It would get tiring after awhile, I think. I might have to sing just to hear myself. Nobody wants that. Crows are not known for their lovely voices.” As always, he played a caricature of himself, flirtatious and insincere with just enough honesty to make it work.  
  
“This is true,” Theron agreed, not minding the company, but missing the stillness.  
  
“Which part, the sneaking or the singing?” Zevran laughed when Theron answered him with a shrug. “You wound me, Warden. Here I thought you would call my bluff so that I could favor you with a song.”

“Maybe the next time a celebration is called for,” Theron said and began to unlace his boots. The birdsong had died with the sun and the night was serene. Theron could swim in the quiet, tuning well-honed ears to everything the wind might have to say. But he could see that it was driving Zevran crazy. “Where are the others, anyway?” With one boot removed, the Warden worked on the other, peering over his shoulder at the Antivan.   
  
“Off doing whatever it is that they do,” he answered with a noncommittal shrug. “If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that the dwarf is drinking and the Qunari is frightening small children. The rest, who knows? If the women were doing something interesting, I would be there, but alas.”    
  
“I would expect no less.” The note of amusement in the Warden’s voice broke something. Out of the blackness, small frogs and crickets began to sing as lightning bugs lit in and out of existence in the wilderness surrounding the camp. The moon, fat and harvest gold, lugged itself over the tops of the trees, bringing a new light with it. Zevran beamed as the Warden tossed the other boot to the side.  
  
“You have expectations of me, do you? I think you ought to tell me what they are so I can be sure that I live up to them.” That was a line that demanded some kind of reaction, and Zevran heaved a melodramatic sigh when the Warden smiled, but didn’t answer. The silence was a killer. In Antiva City there would be revelry. There would be whores and drink and raucous laughter, games of cards and wild dancing. Ferelden, with its dogs and mud, might as well be dead. He waited while Theron stretched to warm his bare feet at the fire before starting again. “You know, I have been meaning to ask you about your tattoos,” he began. It wasn’t the conversation he wanted to have, but it would at least require some contribution from Theron. “They are very intricate. It must have taken hours.”   
  
“It did.”  
  
“Why choose such a complicated design?” Two word answers exasperated him, but Zevran kept his voice curious and friendly.  
  
“I didn’t choose it,” Theron said patiently, resting back on his arms. A bat appeared, jostled from its hiding place by some unseen threat, and passed the two of them in a fluttering rush. Theron tracked it until disappeared with a practiced archer’s gaze.  
  
“So,” Zevran urged. “Did your clan just hold you down and tattoo you against your will? That seems rather barbaric.”     
  
“Nothing like that,” Theron admitted, with that disarming smile that Zevran had seen do incredible things. He wanted to study it, steal it, and add it to his repertoire. “It’s complicated. It’s very much part of the ways of the Dalish. Are you sure you want me to go into it?”  
  
“I want you to do a great many things, very few of which involve talking.” Zevran turned his voice to a purr and lowered his eyelids. Flirtation fit like a pair of well-broken boots and he stepped into it with delight. The night was fine; the timing was good, and the Maker knew there was a measure of mutual attraction. Besides, if Theron wasn’t going to talk, perhaps Zevran could at least make him blush and laugh awkwardly. It appeared that Warden was getting used to asides like that though, because rolled his eyes with good humor and looked again to the fire.  
  
“They say that when we are born,” he began slowly, fawn colored eyes trained on the flames. “The voice of Arlathan whispers to us. We are too young to understand it, so it moves inside of us.” Theron raised his hand to place it against his chest, not above his heart but against his breastbone. He held it there lightly, deep in thought. “As we grow, as we learn, this voice bubbles up like water from a spring. When the time comes, we spend weeks in meditation and purification. We fast and pray, we separate ourselves from the clan. Eventually, this voice speaks through our skin. It is then that the Keeper takes our blood and etches the vallaslin into our faces, to make the words visible to all.” Theron, who rarely spoke at length, grew quiet and somewhat withdrawn, dropping his hand into his lap.

“Your skin speaks?” Zevran asked, more intrigued with the story than he thought he’d be. There was something to be said about Theron’s ability to move with words. He wondered if anyone had ever told him that, then, feeling particularly enlightened, realized that perhaps that was why Theron was quiet so often. There is, after all, a certain burden in being looked up to.  
  
After some thought, Theron sat up and turned to face Zevran, a suspicious smile on his face. In lieu of an answer, he grasped Zevran’s wrist, and while carefully watching the Antivan’s expression transform from wary to prurient, he lifted Zevran’s hand to his face and guided his fingertips across the blood writing. Theron’s skin had soaked up heat from the fire, but the dark tattoos seemed curiously warmer.  
  
“Can you hear it?” Theron asked, guiding Zevran’s hand over the contours of his cheek, deliberately slow. It was worth it to see him speechless. Tilting  back his head, he let Zevran’s fingertips brush across his chin, and closed his eyes like a contented cat.      
  
“Mmm, not yet. Perhaps I need to be closer.” Zevran wondered briefly if he was taking bait or being given an opportunity. It was strange for him to be so startled, but usually these things worked out differently. Zevran had mastered the art playing the seducer while the object of his desires feigned annoyance until admitting defeat and begging for him to take them. Either way, there was no reason to let perfectly good titillation go to waste. Zevran rolled from his hip to his knees, closing the small distance so that he loomed above Theron, who was still resting prone, propped up by one hand. Zevran cupped each cheek, smiling while Theron leaned, just barely, into his touch. With that small sign of encouragement, he eagerly learned the topography of Theron’s skin, tracing the intricate lines and curls of his vallaslin. It felt different than his own tattoos. It was not as though the skin was raised or damaged in some way, to the contrary, every dark line was smooth and strangely heated. As his hands brushed cheekbone and crept towards neck, he fingered a deep scar just below Theron’s left ear, resting the side of his thumb into a groove that he had never noticed.  
  
“What happened here?” Zevran asked softly, brushing the outer rim of the scar with a fingernail, memorizing where the scar tissue ended and soft, reactive skin began by reading the slight change of expression on Theron’s face. When Theron didn’t answer, Zevran dragged his fingers away from that scar and down his jawline. There, with the slightest bit of licentious anticipation, he brushed a thumb across Theron’s lower lip. “There must be something wrong with my ears,” he murmured under his breath, leaning in as if he were straining to hear. Theron’s eyes flickered open and he caught an intense stare through thick lashes, the whisper of a smile on his lips as Zevran’s nose brushed his.

“If you’re going to kiss me, do it quickly,” Theron said, hushed. He trained his pale eyes on Zevran’s, full of challenge and promise. He wanted the Antivan to live up to his boasting, but more than that, he simply  _wanted_. He could fill an ocean with that hunger. How could he have forgotten that it was there? Zevran’s face lit up as a grin stretched across it.  
  
“I knew that you would come around,” Zevran said, sounding pleased and holding his position regardless of whatever sharp bits of Ferelden were now digging into his bare knees. “But you have aroused my curiosity, among other things.” When Theron let out an annoyed scoff, Zevran made as if to wet his lips and deliberately caught one of Theron’s with the very tip of his tongue. He made no attempts to stifle his delighted groan when the Warden’s lips parted in expectation. How wonderful that he was receptive without playing the shy, trembling novice. “I wonder though, do you fancy yourself the submissive or the master? Are you ordering me to kiss you or are you begging? It makes a difference in how I respond, I assure you.” Zevran was stalling, but only to lengthen the anticipation. He wanted Theron to look back on this moment and remember it as though the sky could have opened up, the archdemon bellowed out of it, and neither of them would wanted to move.   
  
“They’re about a hundred paces from camp, now.” Theron tilted his head to one side in a swift, birdlike fashion, pressing his neck into Zevran’s creeping hand. Zevran slid it further back, burying his fingers into Theron’s dark hair.  
  
“I should worry about our privacy being interrupted? Perhaps you’re a little shyer than you let on, hmm?” Zevran purred, using one hand to massage the nape of Theron’s neck as he continued to trace patterns with the other. The blood writing was fascinating. He would trace it with his lips one day—he promised himself that. “Are you afraid for them to see you indulging in a little…shall we say…illicit passion?” His fingers rounded Theron’s jaw and he tilted his chin upwards. Their lips barely brushed when Theron spoke.  
  
“I worry that they’ll think you’re trying to attack me, and respond in kind,” Theron said with some amusement. There was a crack from the woods outside of the clearing, signifying that his estimation on their companions’ distance was correct. “I trust you completely, but they’re a suspicious lot.” Theron tilted his head back into Zevran’s warm hand.  
  
“Braska,” Zevran hissed under his breath and reluctantly removed his hands. “What I wouldn’t do for an hour or two with you.”

“Only an hour or two?” Theron teased, aware from the warmth that his ears had gone red. “You’ve been flirting with me for months, all without trying to touch me. Somehow I think it will take you longer to work up the nerve. ”  
  
“A week or two, perhaps. Maybe a month. All this time traipsing around Ferelden with its mud and dogs has left me—Wait. ” Zevran paused, halfway standing. “Did you say that you trust me?” Zevran asked, feeling oddly flattered. Theron nodded, his gaze unguarded and intense. “Oh, you’ll live to regret that.” The chuckle that was coming died in Zevran’s throat when Theron grabbed him by the collar and threw him off balance, forcing him back to his knees. He clasped both hands on Theron’s shoulders in an attempt to steady himself as the Warden pulled him close and grabbed the back of his neck.     
  
“Fifty paces. Now or never,” Theron breathed, a smirk creeping into the corner of his lips when he leaned forward and kissed him. Even if he hadn’t wanted the chance to do this since the Antivan had started making eyes at him, it was worth it to see Zevran surprised for once. The hunger in that kiss froze them with Zevran teetering awkwardly on his knees, balanced much too far forward. He could taste urgent, eager desire as Theron’s open mouth moved against his, Theron’s tongue seeking to meet his halfway. Theron sighed softly through his nose as he relaxed, and without the Warden holding them up Zevran tumbled awkwardly onto of him. The boundaries of their bodies blurred. They were so similar now; built from eager hands, hungry mouths and fast, shuddering pulses. When they broke apart it was only because they were both aware of what sounded like an eager mabari bounding through the woods. In a fit of affectionate desire, Zevran pressed his lips to Theron’s ear, kissing the tip before burying his nose in Theron’s hair.  
  
“You are a wicked, wicked man, and I like it.” He murmured into his ear, relishing the slight shiver he felt run down Theron’s body. He favored that ear, bringing his teeth down lightly on the lobe before releasing Theron with no small measure of regret. After pulling himself to his feet, he offered his hand to the elf on the ground. Theron accepted and Zevran helped him up just as the mabari tore into camp, barking in furious bliss, followed closely by Alistair and Wynne. There was a moment where Zevran caught Theron looking at him with a covetous sort of tenderness. It wormed into him and he suddenly hated them both for how it made his heart flutter like a broken bird.   
  
This wasn’t supposed to happen again.  


End file.
